Mazes of Scorpio (2 page)

At his call a little serving wench came up with feline grace, carrying a pitcher. If that was the wine, they were rough and ready here.

“A middling Stuvan, tart,” advised the little Och, wiping his three hands again. “But suitable. Oh, yes, suitable.”

As Seg and I sat down with our backs to the wall, Seg grumbled, “Anyone would think he was expecting us.”

“Trade is bad. We are two paktuns with gold. But what you suggest is worth considering.”

“So? How do we consider it?”

“For a start — do we trust the wine?”

“A middling Stuvan? Hard to judge.”

I laughed. Oh, yes, I can laugh.

“If we don’t we’ll be thirsty, and suspect—”

“And if we do we could be stuffed down in the cellars, with our throats slit, ready to go out into the river.”

“Pre-unfortunately-cisely.”

Seg slumped back against the wall and eyed with a most baleful stare the wine the little Fristle fifi had poured for him. I picked up my goblet.

“I’ll drink, Seg. You may claim indisposition, religion, temperance—”

“Why you? Why me!”

“You may rearrange the plan, should you wish.”

He stared at me.

In a low, a very low voice against eavesdroppers, he said, “You, Dray Prescot, as I have said, are a low-down, devious, cunning, rascal of a devil!”

And I laughed again.

“Landlord!” I called it out between laughs.

He appeared, the apron twisting around two of his hands, the third fidgeting with the table arrangements. “Horters?”

“Would you fetch a fresh bottle of Farfaril, for we have just enough silver between us to pay for a decent wine and our meal.” I spoke casually but with emphasis. “After that we will have a pair of copper obs between us.”

“At once, horters.” He did not sound disappointed.

Although he was a cripple, having only three arms, he was deft enough in removing the two goblets of the Stuvan. Farfaril is a full-bodied red wine, not too sweet. I am not overfond of the wines of Hamal, although a few of their top vintages are superb by any standards.

The little Fristle fifi brought the bottle of Farfaril. It was brought quickly enough, the dust still upon it, and the seals intact. I judged there would not have been time to tamper with it. If it had been drugged ahead of time, and laid by, in store to wreak a mischief, Seg and I would have lost our gamble...

The tavern began to fill up as the twin suns sank beyond the Walls of Repentance. The jugglers came in to spend what little they had earned. A man with a chained Munfoon, all hair and eyes and lolling tongue, came in to make the poor creature dance to the sound of a pipe. The girl who played the pipe was clad in mere rags, her naked feet raw and red, her face a pinched white blot. The Munfoon danced a little jig and a rattle of copper obs fell about the girl. She snatched them up, and together with the man and the chained pathetic creature shuffled to a dark corner. All evening other entertainers would perform their shows. Some were better not spoken of.

There was no doubt about it. The roast ordel and the yellow momolams were superb. We ate hugely. Our silver insured us good helpings and a second bottle. We sat, watching, waiting for the arrival of the man or woman who had caused the deaths of our two spies.

We had chosen our own dark corner, against the walls. There was a certain amount of horseplay — leeming, Kregans call it — and one or two fights. Only one dagger was used, and that only inflicted a minor wound. The blood was mostly from a slashed scalp, and scalps bleed like broken hearts.

“I suppose your information was reliable, Dray?”

“We thought so. That great rogue Hamdi the Yenakker told us. He swore the man to see was regularly here in The Ruby Winespout. A man with three black pigtails, a nose bent to larboard, and missing his left ear.”

“If true, bizarre enough to spot.”

“We thought so.”

“Well, Hamdi did help us before. He would turn his colors the moment a new lord appeared. How long do we give this fellow with the pigtails and the bent nose and the missing lughole?”

“As long as it takes.”

“By the Veiled Froyvil, my old dom! And to maintain our cover we’ve ordered two bottles, and two bottles only. It will be thirsty work.”

And this time we both laughed.

“As for the woman, Hamdi was less precise. Not a serving wench, not a shishi, yet a girl who would come here. With a sword strapped to her waist. And coiled hair. Not an easy mark.”

“If she does come here, we’ll know her.”

The first bottle emptied.

We both felt fine.

We started in on the second bottle.

On Earth, where I was born, and which was some four hundred light-years away, a tavern like this would have been wreathed in tobacco smoke. Thankfully, there were no smokers on Kregen.

At least, not tobacco smokers...

A nasty little fight broke out two tables along, and a fellow was carried out feet first and hurled on his head onto the cobbles outside.

The victor, breathing hard, sat back at his bench.

“Stupid tapo! As though one could not see his dice were obviously loaded.”

Another man joined them, flicking his little rods of many colors. If he cheated, he was not discovered as the game of Flick-Flock proceeded with much swearing and bangings of the tables.

Seg looked at the clepsydra perched on a shelf above the door. The water dropped steadily. It was a dark lustrous green.

“If he does not come soon, my old dom, my tongue will begin to crawl about seeking sustenance among the tankards.”

“Maybe we could discover, with cries of joy, another few silver pieces?”

“Why not?”

In the manner of old campaigners we had automatically appraised the metal of the roisterers and swaggerers in the wide main room of The Ruby Winespout. Rough artisans, mostly, with tradespeople sitting together along the angled wall to our corner. Three tables along, past the gamblers at Flick-Flock, the five men sitting with their heads together had not escaped our notice. We kept a quick glance on them from time to time. They were not artisans or tradesfolk; they carried weapons and three of the five wore brigandines, the other two wore jacks.

“Hey, Landlord!” exclaimed Seg, half-rising and extending his hand. “Lookit that! A real beautiful silver sinver graced with the head of the Empress Thyllis, no less.” He puffed his cheeks, and added: “The late Empress Thyllis.”

The little Och trotted over, looking pleased.

“Late or not, horter, it is all good silver.”

“Aye! Another bottle!”

From the corner of my eye, my attention centered amusedly on Seg’s antics, I caught movement approaching from the tradespeople’s tables. Seg was bellowing: “Caught in the lining! Foul stitching by a half-blind wight, I don’t doubt, but I’d kiss his bald pate for him now!”

The movement from my side abruptly manifested itself.

An exceedingly large and extraordinarily hairy man fairly hurtled at me. He knocked over an intervening table. He was purple of face, bulging of eye, foaming of mouth, and screeching something like: “I’ll have your tripes out and strangle your scrawny neck in ’em, so help me Uldor the Mighty!”

There was time to observe he wore a shaggy old pelt-like garment, by its bulk probably concealing armor beneath, before he hit our table. Seg toppled away, with his catlike grace recovering instantly. I leaned away from the blow of a ham-sized fist. I dodged. I shouted.

“What the—?”

The hairy mass shoved the table away. The remains of our bottle splashed. The fist swung again, and the maniac roared out: “I know you, Planath the Sly! Now you have reached the reckoning.” He lashed out again.

I dodged.

“I’m not—”

“Stand still, Planath, rast, yetch! I am going to scrunch your scrawny neck between my hands! I, Dahram the Bold! Accept your just punishment like a man, cramph!”

He got himself entangled in the wreckage of the table. He kicked out, stumbling, windmilling his arms. He had just the two arms, and was an apim like me, a member of Homo sapiens. But he was large, and hairy, and wrought up. There were precious few options left open to me, by Zair!

His purple face and bulging eyes bore down again. He did not have three black pigtails, his nose was not bent to larboard and his ears were both present and correct.

“Now as Uldor the Mighty is my witness, I have sworn to take payment out on your hide, Planath the Sly! Now is your hour of doom—”

He stopped bellowing rather suddenly.

This was mainly because I placed a hand around his throat and pressed a little. My other hand caught his left arm and bent it back — not cruelly, not viciously, just enough to make him stoop very smartly and rub that squashed and fiery nose against the edge of the overturned table.

I spoke into his ear.

“I am not Planath the Sly, Dahram!”

He grunted. I eased the pressure.

He spluttered. “I know you are not Planath the Sly! He could never do what you have just done! My apologies, dom, sincere apologies — but that physiognomy of yours—”

Seg laughed.

“That’ll teach you to monkey with nature!”

Seg knew that I could make subtle adjustments to my face, after a fashion, taught me by a famed Wizard of Loh. I’d altered my own fierce features into what I thought would be a face that would not upset Seg too much. I must have put in too much of the sly look.

I let Dahram the Bold up.

He rubbed his throat and eyed me. He was a fine tall bulky man. There was indeed armor under the pelt. His sword was scabbarded into a plain leather sheath, bronze-bound.

The little fracas had loosened the shaggy pelt at his throat. I caught the glitter of gold.

I said, “Cover your pakzhan, Dahram. We do not wear ours here—”

“Aye,” said Dahram. “But I sold my pakmort when I became a hyr-paktun, sold it to the brotherhood.”

We righted the table and, as though he’d been waiting for the outcome of the little fracas, the Och landlord appeared with the bottle paid for with Seg’s sinver he claimed he’d found lodged in his lining.

Dahram the Bold cocked a bushy eyebrow at me.

“Join us, dom, and tell us your story. I own I would not relish being in the shoes of this Planath the Sly.”

We were fated not to drink that third bottle of Farfaril.

The five men at the table we’d been casually observing chose that moment to make their move.

As I have said, only one dagger had flashed in the fights so far.

These five men descended on us with naked steel.

The patrons of The Ruby Winespout drew themselves away. Some looked. Most went on with what they were doing, only sparing a glance to see how the fight would go, making their wagers on the outcome. Murder and mayhem occurred too commonly in The Ruby Winespout to raise an alarm.

And, all this in defiance of the strict Laws of Hamal...

I did not think Dahram the Bold was the betrayer, delivering the metaphorical kiss of betrayal by his antics. The five opened out as they rushed along the cleared space before the tables. One of them pushed his enveloping hood away from his face in order to see better. And, lo! He had three black pigtails, and a nose bent to larboard, and only one ear. And, lo! again. One of the five men was a woman, with coiled hair under a steel cap, and a sword which was now a bar of glitter in her gloved fist.

“So that’s the way of it!” quoth Seg.

Dahram the Bold didn’t waste time. He ripped his sword free of that plain scabbard. The sword was the straight cut and thrust weapon of Havilfar, the thraxter. The swords swinging against us were thraxters, also. There were no rapiers and no main gauches in evidence in this tavern brawl.

Seg and I drew. Now we happened to have strapped on drexers, the superior sword type developed in our home of Valka, a blend of the best aspects of the thraxter, the native Vallian clanxer, and the superb and mysterious Savanti sword. Without another word, we set to.

Chapter two

Of Beggars and Emperors

In a tavern fight of this brawling nature you don’t have to be too choosy. You don’t stand on ceremony. The romantic flicker of glittering blades is all very well, but...

The broken bottle rolled at the side of my boot.

I picked the bottle up, noticed that the end was broken into a satisfyingly jagged array of teeth, and gestured with it in my left hand as though I were about to throw it.

The leading wight rushing upon us dodged. He moved his head and shoulders back to avoid the throw. I waited until he’d moved, was fixed at the end of his balance — and then I threw.

The jagged end chewed up his face.

Dahram the Bold hurled himself forward, all bulk and hair, yelling. His sword flickered.

When you are a brand new young prince, or a brand new young emperor, you will find many people only too willing to patronize you, suck up to you, toady, flatter, all in the best interests of your good self, of course. I had a quick feeling of regret that, for all this hairy magnificence, there had not been a few more men like Dahram the Bold about some of the emperors and kings I’d known. He had assaulted and insulted me; now he did not waste words but just got stuck in to help to redress the balance.

He fought with a panache that overbore the next two assailants. He foined with the thraxter, using the blade as though it were a pea stick. The man with the three black pigtails lost two of them, and half his face with them, as Dahram slashed. The woman turned and ran. The last of the five stood looking with stupid, bewildered eyes at the hilt of the sword. The blade was through his neck. Seg can throw a blade, too, as well as loose a shaft...

As a fight, it was all over almost before it had begun.

“Friends of yours, doms?”

“No, Dahram. Never seen ’em before.”

Seg said, “It would seem our journey has been in vain. And the bottle is broken—”

“Yes,” I said. “All right, we’ll go.”

Seg hitched up his belt.

I said to Dahram, “You will take a stoup with us at a more salubrious tavern? We are in your debt.”

“For that little bit of knockabout?”

“For disconcerting those damned assassins.”